Governor Samantha Polk looked outside the window of the helicopter, overlooking the sprawing factory complex.
At nearly a million square meters, Complex Alpha was mind-bogglingly large, and had an equally large appetite for manpower and resources.
Polaris Heavy Industries -which was now a third akritan by equity- had commisioned the construction of an entire new town around it. Twenty thousand polarii workers had moved in along with their families, and dozens of businesses had moved over or been established to service their every need. Several thousand akritans were also to be housed, from senior technicians sent to train her own people to R&D folk worth their weight in rhodium.
With the expansion of PHI, polarii industry was experiencing a collective growth spurt. Goldspeak Mining, which had previously focused on mining platinum and its many cousins, was now expanding into bulk minerals like iron, copper and nickel. Logistics and construction were also benefiting from the expansion.
Of couse, growth didn’t exist in a vaccum. Money had to come from somewhere, and right now the governments, akritan and polarii, were footing the bill. The economies of the Pollux system were no longer catering to the civilian populace.
They had become war economies.
Compared to the highly-automated and impossibly efficient foundries and shipyards of the Akritan Dynasty, polarii industies were weak and inefficient. Yet that was slowly changing, as the Dynasty relied more and more on cheap polarii labor and materials to produce the nuts, bolts and wiring that went on their warships and missiles.
Complex Alpha served just that purpose. It was a giant parts factory, taking in refined metal and spitting out everything from screws to pipes and plating.
And Governor Polk was here to inspect it.
The helicopter -an akritan import, too- landed in a designated helipad. A committee of polarii and akritan businessmen, factory managers and military attaches was waiting for her.
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“Welcome to Complex Alpha, madam governor.” Karl Vost, the CEO of Polaris Heavy Industries, was the first to greet her.
“Thank you, Mr. Vost. I look forward to the tour.” Katrina replied, spending a few moments shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries.
Businessmen like Vost looked at her with happy, if reserved, expressions. Many colonies had allowed corporations to do as they pleased so long as they allowed the colony to industrialize, but there had been a rather firm warning against that by the Duke in the months preceding his deployment to Nimbus.
She’d established a rather wolfish anti-corruption agency, and there was a lot of new legislation following industrial developments. Price controls, price gouging prevention, heavy fines and jail time for executives. All part of the stick in her strategy.
It was simple, really. So long as the corporations stayed proper, they got orders. And if they didn’t…they were in for a world of pain. Execs could be replaced, and shareholders were far too afraid of seeing their dividends crushed by hefty fines.
It was a careful balance…but Katrina thrived in it. A former entrepreneur who’d played in the great game that was the republican economy herself, she knew the habits of power-hungry execs and grubby shareholders all too well. The only thing that bothered her was the akritan companies’ opinion…which was positive.
She didn’t know what the man did to keep those giants in line, but it was effective. Maybe that was just what a steady carrot-and-stick policy did after some time. Or maybe a decade of war had changed the execs’ priorities.
…
“And now we’ve arrived at the CNC sub-complex.” Vost explained.
Katrina nodded, taking in the expansive factory floor.
The first thought to come to mind was ‘not good enough’. She’d been witness to the absolute efficiency of akritan factories, and this was not it. The floor layout was obviously messy, and output was slower. She knew, because Katrina had seen those very same CNC machines on ANS Hephaestus churn out bolts much faster.
She shook her head, dismissing the complaint.
Polarii skilled labour was inexperienced, ‘green’. Many of the workers had been in the mines only a year before, changing jobs as the dynasy brought in better tech that could be trusted to do more work autonomously for cheap. Training took time; it was a small wonder that they were reliably churning out parts.
That would change with time. Crews would accrue experienced, more senior workers training new hires faster and better than the generation before them. There would be less and less need for oversight by akritan technicians and management, which prevented accidents and bad batches in return for reduced efficiency and speed.
“Output has increased seven percent in just two weeks.” Vost noted with an understanding smile. “And I believe it will keep increasing for some time as we iron out the kinks in the system.”
Katrina nodded, smiling back. “I’m sure it will, Mr. Vost. I’m sure it will.”